Nothing special happening, no special events. Just people going about their Saturday afternoon.
At Yonge & Dundas
Along Queen Street
At Nathan Phillips Square
below: After the rain the leaves lie stuck to the path and tangled up in the grass.
below: Or stuck in the fence
below: You can’t escape the cranes…..
below: … or the hoardings.
below: Magnus and Angel are missing…. Is this a coincidence?
below: Pink flowers and a purple door.
below: Built in 1892, this building was once the Church of the Messiah Rectory. The church is the next building to the right (with the slightly yellow stones)
below: Faded flower of a different kind
below: Building behind the Rosedale Diner, as seen from Crown Lane
below: Locked door
below: Graffiti on private property.
below: The limestone Summerhill LCBO store which was originally the North Toronto Canadian Pacific train station. The clock tower is 43m high.
below: From a different angle, the station when it was first built in 1916. The tracks are still there but only freight trains pass by these days. It only lasted as a passenger station until September 1930. Back in the day if you wanted to take a train to Lindsay or Bobcaygeon, this is where you’d go although you could also get a train to Ottawa (via Peterborough & Smith’s Falls) or Montreal.
below: No stop ahead
below: “Help negro and white people mass (?) produce painted stones and hide them” plus a lot of other lines and shapes that might be letters or words.
below: I also came across this box yesterday – Sam the Chinese Food Man and other signs.
below: I have vague memories of such a Sam’s restaurant so I went online to find out more about it. What I found is this image in a “Lost Toronto” blogpost. It is Yonge Street just south of Gerrard (the Rio Theatre was 373 Yonge Street). Did you know that Toronto once had a wax museum?

Photo source: ‘Lost Toronto’ blog, post titled ‘When Yonge St Was Fun‘
… and it ended with a trip down memory lane.
Art on construction hoardings.
below: Looking northwest at the intersection of Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West where seven large collages by Daniel Mazzone dominate the corner.
below: On the right, James Dean. It’s difficult to see in this photo, but there are some pink letters on either side of his face. On the left it says “Dream as if you’ll live forever”. On the right is says, “Live as if you will die today”.
below: She repeats. This woman is at the two ends. As far as I can tell, the only difference is the colour of the pattern in the background. On St. Clair it’s purple while it’s red on Yonge. Superman is on her forehead and, in fact, most of the pieces that are used in this artwork are from Superman comics.
below: Charlie Chaplin above the bus shelter. Many of the images used to create the face are also pictures of Charlie Chaplin.
below: Love sees no colour, with Michael Jackson above Yonge Street.
below: “Looking for Beauty” by Daniel Mazzone. Does she see any? There are a few Supermans here too, especially in her face. “Splow” is written in green on her neck.
Open Streets – the second, and final, Open Streets for 2018 was held last Sunday. Large sections of Bloor and Yonge Streets downtown were closed to traffic leaving lots of room for cyclists, pedestrians and a number of activities.
below: Axe Capoeira
below: Mayada’s Belly Dance at Yonge & Bloor
below: And other dancing in the street too – or rather, a very active fitness session!
below: It looks like animals can dance too… this dog seems to be having a great time!
below: Little drummer boy on a fancy Home Depot drum set!
below: Decorating bikes and scooters
below: Sharing a hammock in the middle of Yonge Street.
below: Trumpet lessons
below: Yoga in the park
below: And for those who were looking for something less active…
below: Yonge Street was also on the route of the 2018 Toronto AIDS walk
below: A Lamborghini. 0 to 60 in how many seconds?
While walking on Yonge Street on the day of the Pride Parade, I noticed that the St. Charles tavern clock tower was visible once more. Also on that day, I heard someone ask the person beside them what the tower was. The answer was something like, “I don’t know what it is but it looks interesting.” I went back this weekend to take some pictures – not quite so many people in the way!
below: The St. Charles as it was back in the 1950’s. It was built by Charles Hemstead who had made his money in real estate and horse breeding. Hemstead sold it in 1958 but it continued as the St. Charles until 1987.

photo credit: 1955. Photo by James Salmon, originally found at Toronto Public Library. I found it online at Toronto.com in an excellent article about the history of the building and its role in the LGBQT community.
I have always associated the tower with the St. Charles Tavern but I now know that the tower pre-dates the St. Charles by many decades. It was built as part of Fire Hall Number 3 in the 1870s. Although the fire hall is long gone (it was replaced by the fire hall on Grosvenor Street in the 1920’s), the clock tower has survived several changes of ownership. It is also going to survive the next change which, of course, is the building of a large glass and steel condo on the southwest corner of Yonge & Grosvenor.
below: The site has been cleared. Looking south from Grosvenor.
below: Looking north up Yonge Street towards Grosvenor. The yellow scaffolding is holding up the brick facade of 480 and 482 Yonge Street. It too will be incorporated into the new development. Can you count how many new condos there are? Did you notice that the two clock faces say different times?
The clock kept time until 1969. It had been maintained by the city up until then. Repairs and upkeep stopped when the city decided that the cost was too much. Maybe it will function once again in the near future.
below: An archway has been built into the back of the clock tower.
Last November I blogged about a large 22 storey mural on Yonge Street just below College (music makers on Yonge ). This mural was by Adrian Hayles and it includes many Canadian music icons. Recently, Hayles has created a matching mural of the same size on the other side (south side) of the building at 423 Yonge Street with portraits of more Canadian musicians.
Rush, Goddo, the Band, David Clayton Thomas, Lonnie Johnson, Selome Bey, Carole Pope, Cathy Young, Jay Douglas, Kim Mitchell, Mandala, and John and Lee and the Checkmates are all shown in the mural. It is best seen if you are walking north on Yonge Street although some trees partially block the view.
The mural was commissioned by the Downtown Yonge BIA,
Many people walked and danced, clapped and chanted, as they paraded down Yonge Street on Saturday to start the annual Festival of India weekend.
The parade is similar to an annual procession (Ratha Yatra) that has occurred for centuries in the city of Puri, India as part of a Hindu festival associated with the god Jagannath. Here in Toronto, as in Puri, three chariots constructed to look like temples are pulled through the streets in a procession from one temple to another. Each chariot carries a richly decorated representation of a god, first is Jagannatha (another name for Krishna or God) and then his brother Baladeva and his sister Subhadra. The chariots are pulled by people and the procession symbolizes the pulling of the Lord into our hearts.
In Puri, this Ratha-Yatra procession continues to attract over a million people every year. In Toronto, the numbers aren’t quite that high!